Good news, fans of Greendale Community College’s favorite study group: they’re coming back… For a little while at least. As reported today at EW.com*, NBC has assured fans that ‘Community’ would be coming back to NBC’s schedule for the rest of its third season, though a fourth season is still in doubt.

That doesn’t mean its coming back to Thursdays at 8pm, or immediately though. According to NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Grenblatt, “Community was moved to 8 p.m a couple years ago and that’s an incredibly competitive time slot now on Thursday and I’m really curious to see what something else would do there. I don’t know if it makes sense to ask it to start off the night again. We’ve tried to migrate some comedies to Wednesday this year. It’s a matter of looking at what happens with the six comedies we’ve got, to figure out where Community makes the most sense.”

Reading between the (negative) lines, you could postulate that the network is planning on burning off the rest of their contracted episodes for the show in the least damaging time slot possible, to appease fans. On the other hand, though, even acknowledging there’s a fan base for the show is a step in the right direction.

In fact, Grenblatt continued, saying in regards to a fourth season for the show, “I don’t know. Those are hard questions to answer at this point … we’ll make that decision closer to the upfront.”

So if you were one of those people who is organizing to try and save the show, that’s probably where you want to focus your efforts: getting sponsors on board and supported far in advance of the potential fourth season pick up or cancellation.

Regardless, this does give Community creator Dan Harmon and company enough leeway to go the ‘Chuck’ route: plan for a cancellation, and wrap all the character’s stories up in a satisfying way, while leaving things open in case there is, in fact, a fourth season pick-up. Seems pretty simple to us.

Stay tuned for more info on Community’s eminent non-cancellation, we’ll bring you news as it breaks. Well, a few hours later, probably. But it’ll be there!